I just finished up watching IGN's reveal of Dark Souls 2, and it looks, well... awesome. Just the idea of exploring dungeons, battling ogres, or fighting dinosaur fossils sounds nerdy and amazing to me. While the game looks promising, I just can't seem to get excited about a game that the player is destined to fail at.

With that said, there is definitely buzz about Dark Souls 2. Hardcore fans loved the first two games and can't wait for more. Sales of 1.2 million copies of Dark Souls suggest a strong following for the franchise. With anticipation on the rise for a sequel, those numbers are only looking up for the sequel.

The most interesting thing about this franchise is how undecided the general population is on whether or not Demon Souls and Dark Souls are good games. When Demon Souls came out in 2009, the consensus among game critics was that this was not a game to pass up. However since it's launch gamer's reactions have been all over the place. Some people love the hardcore aspects of the game, while others can't stand it.

Without a doubt hardcore fans go nuts for Dark Souls. Casey Lynch, IGN's Editor in Chief, called Dark Souls his game of the generation. Demon Souls even won Gamespot's game of the year in 2009.

While there is a lot of praise for the hardcore franchise, there is a lot of hate as well. Many gamers have voiced their disdain for both Demon's Souls and Dark Souls. Metacritics user reviews of Dark Souls is an average of 6.9. On the IGN scale that's an "okay" score. For a game with an okay user rating and not a ton of advertising, there is an obscene amount of hype.

The real question is whether or not the Dark Souls formula of rewarding death truly works. The fandom seems to think so, while outsiders such as myself fail to understand the reward. Death in video games is an irritant. It sets goals further away and in the end wastes time. Of course death can be used to remind the player that he or she hasn't taken the time out to progress to the next step in the game. However Dark Souls hasn't conveyed that message to me. It only seems like random death until the player learns to do something exactly the way the developer has envisioned. This formula doesn't feel like reward, it feels like a waste of time.

To From Software's credit, they know exactly who they are appealing to. During the IGN reveal, Yui Tanimura and Tak Miyazoe took time out to highlight some of the many deaths the player will experience during their play time. While most of these deaths appeared to be cheap and aggravating, Tanimura assured the viewers that the deaths are meant to enhance the experience of accomplishing a task in the game. As a newcomer to the series this part of the demo really shocked me. How can so many people enjoy relentless death over and over again?